Re: [Futurework] Re: Iraq is certainly not fine (was: Iraq is fine).

[Darryl and Natalia]

Are "comical" attitudes re: war and terror only misleading? Or, do they create real problems of uncertainty and mistrust through misrepresentation of real pain? Because we not only need to consider our "led-by-the-nose" beliefs but our ignorance of other cultures prejudices.   I include here an item from an "agricultural" E-service from the U.S.. I have shortened the article but, if you wish to view more, the letters can be found at http://www.ea1.com/CARP/ , June 6, 2003, Issue #255 Darryl IN ALL WARS' AFTERMATH CHILDREN ARE THE PERENNIAL FIRST VICTIMS, IRAQ NO EXCEPTION CHARLES A. RADIN, BOSTON GLOBE: Eleven-year-old Doaa opened her eyes to the bright sunshine of early morning and tried without  success to blink away the dust covering her eyes. Her face, her clothes, the brothers and sisters who spent the night huddled close to her on the heat-seared, rock-hard banks of the Tigris River --- all are coated with the fine, brown powder. .... "We get food from those Americans," (the brother) said, pointing to an army encampment perhaps a hundred yards away, "and we sleep here every night." A couple of days later they were gone, leaving behind unanswerable questions not just about the impact of the war and Saddam Hussein's leadership on Iraqi children, but about whether the United States can cope with the  social problems and attitudes of this very different culture. Indeed, a confrontation may be looming between U.S. forces and Shiite clerics over orphans and street children. ... These days, most orphanages are accepting only those children for whom they cared before the war but who scattered during the conflict. There is no obvious place for the newly orphaned and deserted children on the streets, who are said to number at least a few thousand. Mohammed, a teenager who lives in one of the middle-class homes near the U. S. encampment, said Doaa and her siblings left because "some Americans came to help them, but they were afraid they would be put in jail" --- something that might well have happened to them in Hussein's time, especially if they were caught begging. "Anyway, they're not homeless," Mohammed said, with the scorn that many Iraqis express for street children. "Their parents left them." He dismissed with similar ease the plight of a lone boy sleeping on the brick sidewalk to get as close as possible to the Americans. "He uses drugs" --- sniffs glue --- "like many street children here," he said. "That's why he sleeps so much." The boy, ... explained that he has been on the streets since Baghdad fell and American troops opened the gates of Dar Al Rahmah, the House of Mercy, where he was sent months before the war when he was arrested for begging. ... Contempt for the down-and-out extends from youths such as Mohammed to the staffs of Baghdad's better child care institutions. Ibtissam Rasheed Al Habash, 54, a longtime staff member at Families of Iraq, an orphanage now receiving support from both Sheikha Fatima of the United Arab Emirates and the U.S. Army,      resents Army efforts to bring the street children to her institution. "They are not bringing orphans; they are bringing homeless kids," said Habash, although she has no way to know  whether the children have in fact been orphaned. "We are suffering because of that. Homeless children have no manners. Our children have manners, ... The street children "are different," she said. "I prefer if they don't come here." Army Captain Stacey Simms, a reservist from Rochester, New York, who leads the U.S. effort to help the street children, said he "just can't believe the mentality" of the orphanage staffs. ... . . . . These orphanage people do not want the job to be hard." ... "I would like to provide homes" for the street children, "but that's fantasy," Simms said. For now, he is concentrating on getting them food, water, medical care and toys. But he is trying to navigate a situation that might pose a threat to dozens of children and that might cause a  breach in the uneasy cooperation between American forces and Al Hawsa, a Shiite Muslim school and social organization that has largely taken over Sadr City, Baghdad's worst slum, and restored order. Sadr City also is the site of the House of Mercy, an orphanage from which attractive girls once were taken to Hussein's palaces, said Sheikh Bakr Al- Saidi, a 22-year-old Baghdad University law student who has been designated by the Hawsa to renovate the orphanage and protect the students. Other girls were sent out as servants. Young boys were trained in Hussein's army of Young Lions; older boys became part of his militia. "We found cells and dungeons here," Saidi said. "They beat the kids brutally for the silliest mistakes. The guards raped the girls. I can't describe how ugly it was."      ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson To: Harry Pollard Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 10:52 PM Subject: [Futurework] Re: Iraq is certainly not fine (was: Iraq is fine). Harry, At 13:45 05/06/2003 -0700, you wrote: Keith, I posted it because it was both fun and interesting. I thought Steyn's sense of humour was fairly sick. In any case, must have driven around Iraq with blinkers. His account is totally at variance with everybody's else's accounts. His account can only be interpreted as mischievous. I couldn't imagine any of those things you say. I just read about a reporter who entered Iraq in an old jalopy - went East to the outskirts of Baghdad, then north to a couple of cities much in the news. So, he reported what he saw - which is a little different from many other reports we hear. So, you prefer to read the opinions of someone sitting a thousand or more miles away, who no doubt gets much of his information from the newspapers. Well, Max Hastings was not really writing about what was happening in Iraq. He was mainly concerned with the way that Blair committed this country to war, so far without any evidence that we have seen, and the further breakdown in trust that this has engendered. (Incidentally, Max Hastings was a war correspondent for many years before he became the editor of the Daily Telegraph, so he can probably interpret the chaos and cruelties in Iraq that we see on TV more accurately than we can.) Keith Hudson Also, not only is he not particularly informative, he also isn't very funny. Steyn was informative, wasn't he? And he was also funny - at times cuttingly so. Harry ---------------------------------------------------------------------